A family's health isn't dictated by parents' sexual orientation

By Jerry J. Bigner, Ph.D.
Published in the Rocky Mountain News
December 4, 2007

Is a family broken by divorce preferable to a family with same-sex parents? Is a family in which one parent has died preferable to a family with same-sex parents? Mitt Romney thinks so. During a campaign appearance Nov. 1 at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, Romney used these examples to call attention to his support for a federal constitutional amendment “to limit marriage to the relationship between one man and one woman.”

During his remarks, Romney was quoted by M.E. Sprenglemeyer of The News as saying “I believe that the development of children is enhanced by having a male and a female as part of their upbringing in their home. Even when there’s a divorce, you still have a mom and a dad. And even where one member of the partnership may pass away, the memory and the characteristics of that gender, of that partner, influence the development of a child.”
Romney is certainly entitled to his beliefs, but this may be an opportunity to point out that the overwhelming majority of scientific research into this subject shows the facts do not support him.

Many studies by respected social scientists, published in juried publications, show no difference in the development of children raised by gay/lesbian parents or heterosexual couples. The children of same-sex parents are just as happy and well adjusted as their peers from “mom and dad” households. They do just as well in school, have friends and perform like their peers academically. The research also finds that children who have strong, close relationships with their parents are less likely to experience adjustment problems.

Judith Stacey, one of the nation’s most prominent experts in this area and a professor at New York University, said “The most careful studies and the most careful researchers confirm what most of us know from our own lives: The quality of any family’s relationships and resources readily trumps its formal structure or form. Access to economic, educational, and social resources; the quality and consistency of parental nurturance, guidance, and responsibility; and the degree of domestic harmony, conflict, and hostility affect child development and welfare far more substantially than does the particular number, gender, sexual orientation, and marital status of parents or the family structure in which children are reared.”

Why make such an issue of this point? Because it is a fundamental part of the argument that children raised by lesbian/gay parents are somehow at a disadvantage. The fallacious argument has been used in states like Arkansas, where an effort continues to prohibit adoption or foster parenting by same-sex couples, even when the lesbians/gays involved are close relatives. Nor is it just the red states. In justifying their ruling against same-sex marriage in 2006, the majority opinion in New York State’s highest court stated: “Intuition and experience suggest that a child benefits from having before his or her eyes, every day, living models of what both a man and a woman are like.” Unfortunately, these judges’ collective “intuition and experience” simply doesn’t match up with reality, as represented in the more rigorous observations of researchers. Sometimes our most convincing intuitions arise from our most unconscious stereotypes, and our personal life experience may be far too limited for those stereotypes to be questioned and corrected.

Romney’s statement is unfair to the many same-sex couples in Iowa, Colorado, and across the nation, who work just as hard at being good parents, who love their children just as much, and who provide a positive, wholesome environment for their families. It is important that, as voters consider whom to support for President, they understand there is a significant difference between personal opinions and scientific fact.

Jerry J. Bigner, Ph.D. is professor (emeritus) of Human Development and Family Studies at Colorado State University, editor of the Journal of GLBT Family Studies, and a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of Rockway Institute, a national center for LGBT research and public policy.